Quiz - Choose the answer that is closest to what you think SOW is.A - to plantB - a female hogC - what a sewing machine doesD - to throw seeds on the ground

Problem - Outdated

KJV Example - "And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth." (John 4:37)

Explanation - Sow is an old English word that comes from an even older English word, sawen. Sawen means to scatter seed upon the ground or plant it in the earth. It is related to the word, seed. Sow is still used today, but rarely. Few people will say, "I am going out to the garden to sow seed." The Greek word for sow is speiro. Speiro is also related to the Greek word for seed, sperma G4690. There is a different Greek word that simply means to plant, phuteuo G5452. So speiro means something different than to plant. By consulting Greek dictionaries and looking at how this word is used in the New Testament, we find out that it means to plant by flinging seed out on the ground. This is how grass is usually planted today. This is also how salt is spread out on ice to melt it. In the Bible times with no machinery, this was the common way to plant large amounts of seed. Remember the Parable of the Sower? It is about a person who goes out to a field to fling seeds out on to the ground. Unfortunately there is not a good English word for this action that doesn't also have other meanings. Broadcast could be used, but broadcast has a more common meaning that has nothing to do with planting. I came up with a less than ideal translation: to seed. A person who seeds his lawn goes out and throws grass seed out on it. Clouds are seeded when someone throws a chemical into a cloud from an airplane to make it rain. This is what sowing is. It is less than ideal because, like sow, it is rarely used today. It is better than sow because it is related to the noun, seed, as it is in Greek, it is obvious to the reader that it has to do with planting, and it fits well in every verse in which it appears in the New Testament. One reason why this is so hard to express in today's English is because seed is rarely planted this way today, and so the terminology that describes it is also rarely used. This is an example of how sometimes two languages, in this case, Greek and today's English, do not always sync up exactly. When this happens, a less than ideal translation must be used. Sow is a less than ideal translation and seed is a less than ideal translation, but seed is better than sow. In the Bible, to sow is to seed.

Modern Synonym - to seed

Bible Version Tally - sow (40 of 52), plant (12 of 52)

Breakthrough Version - "You see, in this, the saying is true, 'It is another person seeding and another person harvesting.'" (John 4:37)